Liberalism and World Politics
Michael W. Doyle
The American Political Science Review, Vol. 80, No. 4. (Dec., 1986), pp. 1151-1169.
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LIBERALISM AND 

WORLD POLITICS 

MICHAEL W. DOYLE
Johns Hovkins University
Building on a growing literature in international political science, I
reexamine the traditional liberal claim that governments founded on a respect for
individual liberty exercise "restraint" and "peaceful intentions" in their foreign policy. I
look at three distinct theoretical traditions of liberalism, attributable to three theorists:
Schumpeter, a democratic capitalist whose explanation of liberal pacifism we often
invoke; Machiavelli, a classical republican whose glory is an imperialism we often
practice; and Kant, a liberal republican whose theory of internationalism best accounts
for what we are. Despite the contradictions of liberal pacifism and liberal imperialism, I
find, with Kant and other democratic republicans, that liberalism does leave a coherent
legacy on foreign affairs. Liberal states are different. They are indeed peaceful. They are
also prone to make war. Liberal states have created a separate peace, as Kant argued
they would, and have also discovered liberal reasons for aggression, as he feared they
might. I conclude by arguing that the differences among liberal pacifism, liberal
imperialism, and Kant's internationalism are not arbitrary. They are rooted in differing
conceptions of the citizen and the state.
Promoting freedom elect their governments, wars become imwill
produce peace, we have often been possible. Furthermore, citizensappreciate
told. In a speech before the British Parlia- that the benefits of trade can be enjoyed
ment in June of 1982, President Reagan only under.conditions of peace. Thus the
proclaimed that governments founded on very existenceof liberal states, such as the
a respect for individual liberty exercise U.S.,Japan, and our European allies,
"restraint" and "peaceful intentions" in makes for peace.
their foreign policy. He then announced a Building on a growing literature in in"crusade
for freedom" and a "campaign ternational political science, I reexamine
for democratic development" (Reagan, the liberal claim President Reagan reJune
9, 1982). iterated for us. I look at three distinct
In making these claims the president theoretical traditions of liberalism, atjoined
a long list of liberal theorists (and tributable to three theorists: Schumpeter,
propagandists) and echoed an old argu- a brilliant explicator of the liberal
ment: the aggressive instincts of pacifism the president invoked; Machiaauthoritarian
leaders and totalitarian rul- velli, a classical republican whose glory is
ing parties make for war. Liberal states, an imperialism we often practice; and
founded on such individual rights as Kant.
equality before the law, free speech and Despite the contradictions of liberal
other civil liberties, private property, and pacifism and liberal imperialism, I find,
elected representation are fundamentally with Kant and other liberal republicans,
against war this argument asserts. When that liberalism does leave a coherent
the citizens who bear the burdens of war legacy on foreign affairs. Liberal states are
AMERICANPOLITICALSCIENCEREVIEW 

VOL. 80 NO. 4 DECEMBER, 1986 

American Political Science Review Vol. 80
different. They are indeed peaceful, yet
they are also prone to make war, as the
U.S. and our "freedom fighters" are now
doing, not socovertly, against Nicaragua.
Liberal states have created a separate
peace, as Kant argued they would, and
have also discovered liberal reasons for
aggression, as he feared they might. I conclude
by arguing that the differences
among liberal pacifism, liberal imperialism,
and Kant's liberal internationalism
are not arbitrary but rooted in
differing conceptions of the citizen and
the state.
Liberal Pacifism
There is no canonical description of
liberalism. What we tend to call liberal
resembles a family portrait of principles
and institutions, recognizable by certain
characteristics-for example, individual
freedom, political participation, private
property, and e.quality of opportunitythat
most liberal states share, although
none has perfected them all. Joseph
Schumpeter clearly fits within this family
when he considers the international effects
of capitalism and democracy.
Schumpeter's "Sociology of Imperialisms,"
published in 1919, made a
coherent and sustained argument concerning
the pacifying (in the sense of
nonaggressive) effects of liberal institutions
and principles (Schumpeter, 1955;
see also Doyle, 1986, pp. 155-59). Unlike
some of the earlier liberal theorists who
focused on a single feature such as trade
(Montesquieu, 1949, vol. 1, bk. 20, chap.
1) or failed to examine critically the
arguments they were advancing,
Schumpeter saw the interaction of
capitalism and democracy as the foundation
of liberal pacifism, and he tested his
arguments in a sociology of historical
imperialisms.
He defines imperialism as "an objectless
disposition on the part of a state
to unlimited forcible expansion"
(Schumpeter, 1955, p. 6). Excluding imperialisms
that were mere "catchwords"
and those that were "object-ful" (e.g.,
defensive imperialism),he traces the roots
of objectlessimperialismto three sources,
each an atavism. Modern imperialism,
according to Schumpeter, resulted from
the combined impact of a "war machine,"
warlike instincts, and export
monopolism.
Once necessary, the war machine later
developed a life of its own and took control
of a state's foreign policy: "Created
by the wars that required it, the machine
now created the wars it required
(Schumpeter, 1955, p. 25). Thus,
Schumpeter tells us that the army of ancient
Egypt, created to drive the Hyksos
out of Egypt, took over the state and pursued
militaristic imperialism. Like the
later armies of the courts of absolutist
Europe, it fought wars for the sake of
glory and booty, for the sake of warriors
and monarchs-wars gratia warriors.
A warlike disposition, elsewhere called
"instinctual elements of bloody
primitivism," is the natural ideology of a
war machine. It also existsindependently;
the Persians, says Schumpeter (1955, pp.
25-32), were a warrior nation from the
outset.
Under modern capitalism, export
monopolists, the third source of modem
imperialism, push for imperialist expansion
as a way to expand their closed
markets. The absolute monarchies were
the last clear-cut imperialisms.
Nineteenth-century imperialisms merely
represent the vestiges of the imperialisms
created by Louis XIV and Catherine the
Great. Thus, the export monopolists are
an atavism of the absolute monarchies,
for they depend completely on the tariffs
imposed by the monarchs and their
militaristic successors for revenue
(Schumpeter, 1955, p. 82-83). Without
tariffs, monopolies would be eliminated
by foreign competition.
Modern (nineteenth century) imperi-
1986 Liberalism and World Politics
alism, therefore, rests on an atavisticwar
machine, militaristic attitudes left over
from the days of monarchical wars, and
export monopolism, which is nothing
more than the economic residue of
monarchical finance. In the modern era,
imperialistsgratify their private interests.
From the national perspective, their imperialistic
wars are objectless.
Schumpeter's theme now emerges.
Capitalism and democracy are forces for
peace. Indeed, they are antitheticalto imperialism.
For Schumpeter, the further
development of capitalism and democracy
means that imperialism will inevitably
disappear. He maint-dlns that
capitalismproduces an unwarlike disposition;
its populace is "democratized, individualized,
rationalized (Schumpeter,
1955, p. 68). The people's energies are
daily absorbed in production. The
disciplines of industry and the market
train people in "economic rationalism";
the instability of industrial life
necessitates calculation. Capitalism also
"individualizes"; "subjective opportunities"
replace the "immutable factors"
of traditional, hierarchical society. Rational
individuals demand democratic
governance.
Democratic capitalism leads to peace.
As evidence, Schumpeter claims that
throughout the capitalist world an opposition
has arisen to "war, expansion,
cabinet diplomacy"; that contemporary
capitalism is associated with peace parties;
and that the industrial worker of
capitalism is "vigorously anti-imperialist."
In addition, he points out that the capitalist
world has developedmeans of preventingwar,
such asthe HagueCourt and that
the least feudal, most capitalist societythe
United States-has demonstrated the
least imperialistictendencies (Schumpete~
1955, pp. 95-96). An example of the lack
of imperialistic tendencies in the U.S.,
Schumpeter thought, was our leaving
over half of Mexico unconquered in the
war of 1846-48.
Schumpeter's explanation for liberal
pacifism is quite simple: Only war profiteers
and military aristocrats gain from
wars. No democracy would pursue a
minority interest and tolerate the high
costs of imperialism. When free trade
prevails, "no class" gains from forcible
expansion because
foreign raw materials and food stuffs are as
accessible to each nation as though they were in
its own territory. Where the cultural backwardness
of a region makes normal economic intercourse
dependent on colonization it does not
matter, assuming free trade, which of the
"civilized"nationsundertakesthe task of colonization.
(Schumpeter,1955, pp. 75-76)
Schumpeter's arguments are difficultto
evaluate. In partial tests of quasiSchumpeterian
propositions, Michael
Haas (1974, pp. 464-65) discovered a
cluster that associates democracy,
development, and sustained modernization
with peaceful conditions. However,
M. Small and J. D. Singer (1976) have
discovered that there is no clearly
negative correlation between democracy
and war in the period 1816-1965-the
period that would be central to
Schumpeter's argument (see also
Wilkenfeld, 1968, Wright, 1942, p. 841).
Later in his career, in Capitalism,
Socialism, and Democracy, Schumpeter,
(1950, pp. 127-28) acknowledged that
"almost purely bourgeois commonwealths
were often aggressive when it
seemed to pay-like the Athenian or the
Venetian commonwealths." Yet he stuck
to his pacifistic guns, restating the view
that capitalist democracy "steadily tells
...against the use of military force and
for peaceful arrangements, even when the
balance of pecuniary advantage is clearly
on the side of war which, under modern
circumstances, is not in general very likely"
(Schumpeter, 1950, p. 128).lA recent
study by R. J. Rummel (1983) of "libertarianism"
and international violence is
the closest test Schumpeterian pacifism
has received. "Free" states (thoseenjoying
American Political Science Review Vol. 80
political and economic freedom) were
shown to have considerably less conflict
at or above the level of economic sanctions
than "nonfree" states. The free
states, the partly free states (includingthe
democratic socialist countries such as
Sweden), and the nonfree states accounted
for 24%, 26%, and 61%, respectively,
of the international violence
during the period examined.
These effects are impressive but not
conclusive for the Schumpeterian thesis.
The data are limited, in this test, to the
period 1976 to 1980. It includes, for example,
the Russo-Afghan War, the Vietnamese
invasion of Cambodia, China's
invasion of Vietnam, and Tanzania's invasion
of Uganda but just misses the U.S.,
quasi-covert intervention in Angola
(1975)and our not so covert war against
Nicaragua (1981-). More importantly, it
excludes the cold war period, with its
numerous interventions, and the long
history of colonial wars (the Boer War,
the Spanish-American War, the Mexican
Intervention, etc.) that marked the
history of liberal, including democratic
capitalist, states (Doyle, 1983b; Chan,
1984; Weede, 1984).
The discrepancy between the warlike
history of liberal states and Schumpeter's
pacifistic expectationshighlightsthree extreme
assumptions. First, his "materialistic
monism" leaves little room for
noneconomic objectives, whether espoused
by states or individuals. Neither
glory, nor prestige, nor ideological
justification, nor the pure power of ruling
shapes policy. These nonmaterial goals
leave little room for positive-sum gains,
such as the comparative advantages of
trade. Second, and relatedly, the same is
true for his states. The political life of
individuals seems to have been homogenized
at the same time as the individuals
were "rationalized, individualized, and
democratized." Citizens-capitalists and
workers, rural and urban-seek material
welfare. Schumpeter seems to presume
that ruling makes no difference. He also
presumes That no one is prepared to take
those measures (suchas stirringup foreign
quarrels to preserve a domestic ruling
coalition) that enhance one's volitical
power, despite deterimental effhcts on
mass welfare. Third, like domestic
politics, world politics are homogenized.
Materiallv monistic and democraticallv
capitalist, all states evolve toward free
trade and liberty together. Countries differently
constituted seem to disappear
from Schumpeter's analysis. "Civilized
nations govern "culturally backward"
regions.Theseassumptionsare not shared
by Machiavelli's theory of liberalism.
Liberal Imperialism
Machiavelli argues, not only that
republics are not pacifistic, but that they
are the best form of state for imperial
expansion. Establishing a republic fit for
imperial expansion is, moreover, the best
way to guarantee the survival of a state.
Machiavelli's republic is a classical
mixed republic. It is not a democracywhich
he thought would quickly degenerate
into a tyranny-but is characterized
by social equality, popular liberty, and
political participation (Machiavelli,1950,
bk. 1, chap. 2, p. 112; see also Huliung,
1983, chap. 2; Mansfield, 1970; Pocock,
1975,pp. 198-99; Skinner, 1981,chap. 3).
The consulsserveas "kings," the senateas
an aristocracymanagingthe state, and the
people in the assembly as the source of
strength.
Liberty results from "disunionw-the
competition and necessity for compromise
required by the division of
powers among senate, consuls, and
tribunes (the last representing the common
people). Liberty alsoresultsfrom the
popular veto. The powerful few threaten
the rest with tyranny, Machiavelli says,
because they seek to dominate. The mass
demands not to be dominated, and their
1986 Liberalism and World Politics
veto thus preserves the liberties of the
state (Machiavelli,1950,bk. 1, chap. 5, p.
122). However, since the people and the
rulers have differentsocial characters, the
people need to be "managed by the few
to avoid having their recklessness overturn
or their fecklessness undermine
the ability of the state to expand
(Machiavelli, 1950, bk. 1, chap. 53, pp.
249-50). Thus the senate and the consuls
plan expansion, consult oracles, and
employ religion to manage the resources
that the energy of the people supplies.
Strength, and then imperial expansion,
results from the way liberty encourages
increased populationand property, which
grow when the citizens know their lives
and goods are secure from arbitrary
seizure. Free citizens equip large armies
and provide soldierswho fight for public
glory and the common good because these
are, in fact, their own (Machiavelli, 1950,
bk. 2, chap. 2, pp. 287-90). If you seek
the honor of having your state expand,
Machiavelli advises, you should organize
it as a free and popular republic like
Rome, rather than as an aristocratic
republic like Sparta or Venice. Expansion
thus calls for a free republic.
"Necessityu-political survival-calls
for expansion. If a stable aristocratic
republic is forced by foreign conflict "to
extend her territory, in such a case we
shall see her foundations give way and
herself quicklybrought to ruin"; if, on the
other hand, domestic security prevails,
"the continued tranquilitywould enervate
her, or provoke internal disensions,
which together, or either of them
seperately, will apt to prove her ruin"
(Machiavelli, 1950, bk. 1, chap. 6, p.
129). Machiavelli therefore believes it is
necessary to take the constitution of
Rome, rather than that of Sparta or
Venice, as our model.
Hence, this belief leads to liberal imperialism.
We are lovers of glory,
Machiavelli announces. We seek to rule
or, at least, to avoid being oppressed. In
either case, we want more for ourselves
and our states than just material welfare
(materialistic monism). Because other
states with similar aims thereby threaten
us, we prepare ourselves for expansion.
Because our fellow citizens threaten us if
we do not allow them either to satisfy
their ambition or to release their political
energies through imperial expansion, we
expand.
There is considerable historical
evidence for liberal imperialism.
Machiavelli's (Polybius's) Rome and
Thucydides' Athens both were imperial
republics in the Machiavellian sense
(Thucydides, 1954, bk. 6). The historical
record of numerous U.S. interventions in
the postwar period supportsMachiavelli's
argument (Aron, 1973, chaps. 3-4;
Barnet, 1968, chap. ll), but the current
record of liberal pacifism, weak as it is,
callssomeof his insightsintoquestion. To
the extent that the modern populace actually
controls (and thus unbalances) the
mixed republic, its diffidence may outweigh
elite ("senatorial") aggressiveness.
We can conclude either that (1) liberal
pacifism has at least taken over with the
further development of capitalist
democracy, as Schumpeter predicted it
would or that (2) the mixed record of
liberalism-pacifism and imperialismindicates
that some liberal states are
Schumpeterian democracies while others
are Machiavellian republics. Before we
accept either conclusion, however, we
must consider a third apparent regularity
of modern world politics.
Liberal Internationalism
Modern liberalism carries with it two
legacies. They do not affect liberal states
separately, according to whether they are
pacifistic or imperialistic, but simul-
taneously.
Thefirst of theselegacies is the pacification
of foreign relations among liberal
American Political Science Review Vol. 80
state^.^ Duringthe nineteenth century, the
United States and Great Britain engaged
in nearly continual strife; however, after
the Reform Act of 1832 defined actual
representation as the formal source of the
sovereignty of the British parliament,
Britain and the United States negotiated
their disputes. They negotiated despite,
for example, British grievancesduring the
Civil War against the North's blockade of
the South, with which Britain had close
economic ties. Despite severe AngloFrench
colonial rivalry, liberal France and
liberal Britain formed an entente against
illiberal Germany before World War I.
And from 1914 to 1915, Italy, the liberal
member of the Triple Alliance with Germany
and Austria, chose not to fulfill its
obligations under that treaty to support
its allies. Instead, Italy joined in an alliance
with Britain and France, which prevented
it from having to fight other liberal
states and then declared war on Germany
and Austria. Despite generations of
Anglo-American tension and Britain's
wartime restrictions on American trade
with Germany, the United States leaned
toward Britain and France from 1914 to
1917before enteringWorld War I on their
side.
Beginningin the eighteenth century and
slowly growing since then, a zone of
peace, which Kant called the "pacific
federation" or "pacific union," has begun
to be established among liberal societies.
More than 40 liberalstates currentlymake
up the union. Most are in Europe and
North America, but they can be found on
every continent, as Appendix 1indicates.
Here the predictions of liberal pacifists
(and President Reagan) are borne out:
liberal states do exercise peaceful
restraint, and a separate peace exists
among them. This separate peace provides
a solid foundation for the United
States' crucial alliances with the liberal
powers, e.g., the North Atlantic Treaty
Organization and our Japanese alliance.
Thisfoundation appears to be impervious
to the quarrels with our allies that bedeviled
the Carter and Reagan administrations.
It also offers the promise of a
continuing peace among liberal states,
and as the number of liberal states increases,
it announces the possibility of
global peace this side of the grave or
world conquest.
Of course, the probability of the outbreak
of war in any given year between
any two given states is low. The occurrence
of a war between any two adjacent
states, considered over a long period of
time, would be more probable. The apparent
absence of war between liberal
states, whether adjacent or not, for
almost 200 years thus may have significance.
Similar claims cannot be made
for feudal, fascist, communist, authoritarian,
or totalitarian forms of rule
(Doyle, 1983a, pp. 222), nor for pluralistic
or merely similar societies. More
significant perhaps is that when states are
forced to decide on which side of an impending
world war they will fight, liberal
states all wind up on the same side despite
the complexityof the paths that take
them there. These characteristics do not
prove that the peace among liberals is
statisticallysignificant nor that liberalism
is the sole valid explanation for the
peace.3They do suggest that we consider
the possibility that liberals have indeed
established a separate peace-but only
among themselves.
Liberalism also carries with it a second
legacy: international "imprudence"
(Hume, 1963, pp. 346-47). Peaceful
restraint only seems to work in liberals'
relationswith other liberals. Liberal states
have fought numerous wars with nonliberal
states. (For a list of international
wars since 1816see Appendix 2.)
Many of these wars have been defensive
and thus prudent by necessity.
Liberal states have been attacked and
threatened by nonliberal states that do
not exercise any special restraint in their
dealings with the liberal states.
1986 Liberalism and World Politics
Authoritarian rulers both stimulate and
respond to an international political environment
in which conflicts of prestige,
interest, and pure fearof what otherstates
might do all lead states toward war. War
and conquest have thus characterized the
careers of many authoritarian rulers and
ruling parties, from Louis XIV and
Napoleon to Mussolini's fascists, Hitler's
Nazis, and Stalin's communists.
Yet we cannot simplyblame warfare on
the authoritarians or totalitarians, as
many of our more enthusiasticpoliticians
would have us Most wars ariseout of
calculations and miscalculations of interest,
misunderstandings, and mutual
suspicions, such as those that characterized
the origins of World War I.
However, aggression by the liberal state
has also characterized a large number of
wars. Both France and Britain fought expansionist
colonial wars throughout the
nineteenth century. The United States
fought a similar war with Mexico from
1846to 1848,waged a war of annihilation
against the American Indians, and intervened
militarily against sovereign
statesmany times before and after World
War 11. Liberal states invade weak
nonliberal states and display striking
distrust in dealings with powerful
nonliberal states (Doyle, 1983b).
Neither realist (statist) nor Marxist
theory accounts well for these two
legacies. While they can account for
aspects of certain periods of international
stability (Aron, 1968, pp. 151-54;
Russett, 1985), neither the logic of the
balance of power nor the logic of international
hegemony explains the separate
peace maintained for more than 150years
among states sharing one particular form
of governance-liberal principles and institutions.
Balance-of-power theory expects-indeed
is premised upon-flexible
arrangements of geostrategic rivalry that
include preventive war. Hegemonies wax
and wane, but the liberal peace holds.
Marxist "ultra-imperialists" expect a form
of peaceful rivalry among capitalists, but
only liberal capitalists maintain peace.
Leninists expect liberal capitalists to be
aggressive toward nonliberal states, but
they also (and especially) expect them to
be imperialistic toward fellow liberal
capitalists.
Kant's theory of liberal internationalism
helps us understand these two
legacies. The importance of Immanuel
Kant as a theorist of international ethics
has been well appreciated (Armstrong,
1931; Friedrich, 1948; Gallie, 1978, chap.
1;Galston, 1975;Hassner, 1972; Hinsley,
1967, chap. 4; Hoffmann, -1965; Waltz,
1962; Williams, 1983), but Kant also has
an important analytical theory of intemational
politics. Perpetual Peace, written in
1795 (Kant, 1970, pp. 93-130), helps us
understand the interactivenature of international
relations. Kant tries to teach us
methodologically that we can study
neither the systemicrelations of statesnor
the varieties of state behavior in isolation
from each other. Substantively, he anticipates
for us the ever-widening pacification
of a liberal pacific union, explains
this pacification, and at the same time
suggests why liberal states are not pacific
in their relations with nonliberal states.
Kant argues that perpetual peace will be
guaranteed by the ever-widening acceptanceof
three "definitive articles" of peace.
When all nations have accepted the
definitive articles in a metaphorical
"treaty" of perpetual peace he asks them
to sign, perpetual peace will have been
established.
The First Definitive Article requires the
civil constitution of the state to be
republican. By republican Kant means a
political society that has solved the problem
of combining moral autonomy, individualism,
and social order. A private
property and market-oriented economy
partially addressed that dilemma in the
private sphere. The public, or political,
sphere was more troubling. His answer
was a republic that preserved juridical
American Political Science Review Vol. 80
freedom-the legal equality of citizens as
subjects-on the basis of a representative
government with a separation of powers.
Juridicalfreedom is preserved because the
morally autonomous individual is by
means of representation a self-legislator
making laws that apply to all citizens
equally, including himself ' or herself.
Tyranny is avoided because the individual
is subject to laws he or she does
not also administer (Kant, PP, pp. 99-
102; Riley, 1985, chap. 5).'
Liberal republics will progressively
establish peace among themselves by
means of the pacific federation, or union
(foedus pacificurn), described in Kant's
Second Definitive Article. The pacific
union will establishpeace within a federation
of free states and securely maintain
the rights of each state. Theworld will not
have achieved the "perpetual peace" that
provides the ultimate guarantor of republican
freedom until "a late stage and after
many unsuccessful attempts" (Kant, UH,
p. 47). At that time, all nations will have
learned the lessons of peace through right
conceptions of the appropriate constitution,
great and sad experience, and good
will. Only then will individuals enjoy
perfect republican rights or the full
guarantee of a global and just peace. In
the meantime, the "pacific federation" of
liberal republics-"an enduring and gradually
expanding federation likely to prevent
warw-brings within it more and
more republics-despite republican collapses,
backsliding, and disastrouswarscreating
an ever-expandingseparatepeace
(Kant, PP, p. 105).6Kant emphasizes that
it can be shown that this idea of federalism, extending
gradually to encompass all states and
thus leading to perpetual peace, is practicable
and has objective reality. For if by good fortune
one powerful and enlightened nation can form a
republic (which is by nature inclined to seek
peace), this will provide a focal point for federal
association among other states. These will join
up with the first one, thus securing the freedom
of each state in accordancewith the idea of international
right, and the whoIe wiII graduaIIy
spread further and furtherby a seriesof alliances
of this kind. (Kant, PP p. 104)
The pacific union is not a single peace
treaty ending one war, a world state, nor
a state of nations. Kant finds the first insufficient.
The second and third are impossible
or potentially tyrannical. National
sovereignty precludes reliable
subservienceto a state of nations; a world
state destroys the civic freedom on which
the developmentof human capacitiesrests
(Kant, UH, p. 50). Although Kant obliquely
refers to various classical
interstate confederations and modern
diplomatic congresses, he develops no
systematicorganizational embodiment of
this treaty and presumably does not find
institutionalization necessary (Riley,
1983, chap. 5; Schwarz, 1962, p. 77). He
appears to have in mind a mutual nonaggression
pact, perhaps a collective
security agreement, and the cosmopolitan
law set forth in the Third Definitive
Article.'
The Third DefinitiveArticle establishes
a cosmopolitanlaw to operate in conjunction
with the pacific union. The cosmopolitan
law "shall be limited to conditions
of universal hospitality." In this Kant calls
for the recognition of the "right of a foreigner
not to be treated with hostility
when he arrives on someone else's territory."
This"does not extendbeyond those
conditions which make it possible for
them [foreigners]to attempt to enter into
relations [commerce]with the native inhabitants"
(Kant, PP, p. 106).Hospitality
does not require extending to foreigners
either the right to citizenship or the right
to settlement, unless the foreign visitors
would perish if they were expelled. Foreign
conquest and plunder also find no
justification under this right. Hospitality
does appear to include the right of access
and the obligation of maintaining the
opportunity for citizens to exchange
goods and ideas without imposing the
obligation to trade (a voluntary act in all
cases under liberal constitutions).
1986 Liberalism and World Politics
Perpetual peace, for Kant, is an epistemology,
a condition for ethical action,
and, most importantly, an explanation of
how the "mechanical process of nature
visibly exhibits the purposive plan of producing
concord among men, even against
their will and indeed by means of their
very discord" (Kant, PP,p. 108; UH, pp.
44-45). Understanding history requires an
epistemologicalfoundation, for without a
teleology, such as the promise of perpetual
peace, the complexity of history
would overwhelm human understanding
(Kant, UH, pp. 51-53). Perpetual peace,
however, is not merely a heuristic device
with which to interpret history. It is
guaranteed, Kant explains in the "First
Addition" to Perpetual Peace ("On the
Guarantee of Perpetual Peace"), to result
from men fulfilling their ethical duty or,
failing that, from a hidden plan.' Peace is
an ethical duty because it is only under
conditions of peace that all men can treat
each other as ends, rather than means to
an end (Kant, UH, p. 50; Murphy, 1970,
chap. 3). In order for this duty to be practical,
Kant needs, of course, to show that
peace is in fact possible. The widespread
sentiment of approbation that he saw
aroused by the early successof the French
revolutionaries showed him that we can
indeed be moved by ethical sentiments
with a cosmopolitanreach (Kant, CF, pp.
181-82; Yovel, 1980, pp. 153-54). This
does not mean, however, that perpetual
peace is certain ("prophesiable"). Even the
scientificallyregular course of the planets
could be changed by a wayward comet
striking them out of orbit. Human
freedom requires that we allow for much
greater reversals in the course of history.
We must, in fact, anticipatethepossibility
of backsliding and destructive warsthough
these will serveto educatenations
to the importanceof peace (Kant, UH, pp.
47-48).
In the end, however, our guarantee of
perpetual peace does not rest on ethical
conduct. As Kant emphasizes,
we now come to the essential questionregarding
the prospect of perpetual peace. What does
naturedo in relation to the endwhich man'sown
reasonprescribes to him as a duty, i.e. how does
nature help to promote his moral purpose?And
how does nature guaranteethat what man ought
to do by the laws of his freedom (but does not
do) will in fact be done through nature's compulsion,
without prejudice to the free agency of
man? ...This does not mean that nature imposes
on us a duty to do it, for dutiescan only be
imposed by practical reason. On the contrary,
nature does it herself, whether we are willing or
not: facta volentem ducunt, nolentem tradunt.
(PP, p. 112)
Theguaranteethus rests, Kant argues, not
on the probable behavior of moral angels,
but on that of "devils, so long as they
possess understanding" (PP, p. 112). In
explainingthe sources of each of the three
definitive articles of the perpetual peace,
Kant then tells us how we (asfree and intelligent
devils) could be motivated by
fear, force, and calculated advantage to
undertake a course of action whose outcome
we could reasonably anticipate to
be perpetualpeace. Yet while it ispossible
to conceive of the Kantian road to peace
in these terms, Kant himself recognizes
and argues that social evolution also
makes the conditions of moral behavior
less onerous and hence more likely (CF,
pp. 187-89; Kelly, 1969, pp. 106-13). In
tracing the effects of both political and
moral development, he builds an account
of why liberal states do maintain peace
among themselves and of how it will (by
implication, has) come about that the
pacific union will expand. He also explains
how these republics would engage
in wars with nonrepublics and therefore
suffer the "sad experience"of wars that an
ethical policy might have avoided.
The first source of the three definitive
articles derives from a political evolution-from
a constitutional law. Nature
(providence)has seen to it that human beings
can live in all the regions where they
have been driven to settleby wars. (Kant,
who once taught geography, reports on
the Lapps, the Samoyeds, the Pescheras.)
American Political Science Review Vol. 80
"Asocial sociability" draws men together
to fulfill needs for security and material
welfare as it drives them into conflicts
over the distributionand control of social
products (Kant, UH, p. 44-45; PP, pp.
110-11). This violent natural evolution
tends towards the liberal peace because
"asocial sociability" inevitably leads
toward republican governments, and republican
governments are a source of the
liberal peace.
Republican representation and separation
of powers are produced because they
are the means by which the state is
"organized well" to prepare for and meet
foreign threats (by unity) and to tame the
ambitions of selfish and aggressive individuals
(by authority derived from
representation, by general laws, and by
nondespotic administration) (Kant, PP,
pp. 112-13). Statesthat are not organized
in this fashion fail. Monarchs thus encourage
commerce and private property
in order to increasenational wealth. They
cede rights of representation to their subjects
in order to strengthen their political
support or to obtain willing grants of tax
revenue (Hassner, 1972, pp. 583-86).
Kant shows how republics, once established,
lead to peaceful relations. he
arguesthat once the aggressiveinterestsof
absolutist monarchies are tamed and the
habit of respect for individual rights
engrained by republican government,
wars would appear as the disaster to the
people's welfare that he and the other
liberals thought them to be. The fundamental
reason is this:
If, as is inevitability the case under this constitution,
the consent of the citizens is required to
decide whether or not war should be declared, it
is very natural that they will have a great hesitation
in embarkingon so dangerousan enterprise.
For this would mean calling down on themselves
all the miseries of war, such as doing the fighting
themselves, supplying the costs of the war from
their own resources, painfully making good the
ensuing devastation, and, as the crowning evil,
having to take upon themselves a burden of
debts which will embitter peace itself and which
can never be paid off on account of the constant
threat of new wars. But under a constitution
where the subject is not a citizen, and which is
therefore not republican, it is the simplest thing
in the world to go to war. For the head of state is
not a fellow citizen, but the owner of the state,
and war will not force him to make the slightest
sacrifice so far as his banquets, hunts, pleasure
palacesand court festivals are concerned.He can
thus decide on war, without any significant
reason, as a kind of amusement, and unconcernedlyleaveit
to the diplomaticcorps (whoare
always ready for such pruposes) to justify the
war for the sake of propriety. (Kant, PP, p. 100)
Yet these domestic republican restraints
do not end war. If they did, liberal states
would not be warlike, which is far from
the case. They do introduce republican
caution-Kant's "hesitationu-in place of
monarchical caprice. Liberal wars are
only fought for popular, liberal purposes.
The historical liberal legacy is laden with
popular wars fought to promote freedom,
to protect private property, or to support
liberal allies against nonliberal enemies.
Kant's position is ambiguous. He regards
these wars as unjust and warns liberals of
their susceptibility to them (Kant, PP, p.
106). At the same time, Kant argues that
each nation "can and ought to" demand
that its neighboringnations enter into the
pacific union of liberal states (PP, p. 102).
Thus to see how the pacific union removes
the occasionof wars amongliberal
states and not wars between liberal and
nonliberal .states, we need to shift our
attention from constitutionallaw to international
law. Kant's second source.
Complementing the const'itutional
guarantee of caution, international law
adds a second source for the definitive
articles: a guarantee of respect. The
separation of nations that asocial sociability
encourages is reinforced by the
development of separate languages and
religions. These further guaranteea world
of separate states-an essential condition
needed to avoid a "global, soul-less
despotism." Yet, at the same time, they
also morally integrate liberal states: "as
culture grows and men gradually move
towards greater agreement over their
1986 Liberalism and World Politics
principles, they lead to mutual understanding
and peace" (Kant, PP, p. 114).
As republics emerge (the first source)and
as culture progresses, an understandingof
the legitimate rights of all citizens and of
all republics comes into play; and this,
now that caution characterizes policy,
sets up the moral foundations for the
liberal peace. Correspondingly, international
law highlights the importance of
Kantian publicity. Domestically, publicity
helps ensure that the officials of
republics act according to the principles
they profess to hold just and accordingto
the interests of the electors they claim to
represent. Internationally, freespeech and
the effective communication of accurate
conceptions of the political life of foreign
peoples is essential to establishing and
preserving the understanding on which
the guarantee of respect depends. Domestically
just republics, which rest on consent,
then presume foreign republics also
to be consensual, just, and therefore
deserving of accommodation. The experience
of cooperation helps engender further
cooperative behavior when the consequences
of state policy are unclear but
(potentially) mutually beneficial. At the
same time, liberal states assume that
nonliberal states, \which do not rest on
free consent, are not just. Because
nonliberal governments are in a state of
aggression with their own people, their
foreign relations become for liberal
governments deeply suspect. In short,
fellowliberals benefit from a presumption
of amity; nonliberals suffer from a
presumption of enmity. Both presumptions
may be accurate; each, however,
may also be self-confirming.
Lastly, cosmopolitanlaw adds material
incentives to moral commitments. The
cosmopolitan right to hospitality permits
the "spirit of commerce" sooner or later to
take hold of every nation, thus impelling
states to promote peaceand to try to avert
war. Liberal economic theory holds that
these cosmopolitan ties derive from a
cooperative international division of
labor and free trade according to comparative
advantage. Each economy is said
to be better off than it would have been
under autarky; each thus acquires an incentive
to avoid policies that would lead
the other to break these economic ties.
Because keeping open markets rests upon
the assumption that the next set of transactions
will also be determined by prices
rather than coercion. a sense of mutual
security is vital to avoid securitymotivated
searchesfor economicautarky.
Thus, avoiding a challenge to another
liberal state's security or even enhancing
each other's security by means of alliance
naturally follows economic interde-
pendence.
A further cosmo~olitansource of liberal
peace is the hernational market's
removal of difficult decisions of production
and distribution from the direct
sphereof state policy. A foreign state thus
does not appear directly responsible for
these outcomes, and states can stand aside
from, and to some degree above, these
contentious market rivalries and be ready
to step in to resolve crises. The interdependence
of commerce and the international
contacts of state officials help
create crosscuttinn transnational ties that
serve as lobbies f;;r mutual accommodation.
According to modern liberal
scholars, international financiers and
transnational and transnovernmental or--ganizations create interests in favor of
accommodation. Moreover, their variety
has ensured that no single conflict sours
an entire relationship by setting off a
spiral of reciprocated retaliation (Brzezinski
and Huntington, 1963, chap. 9; Keohane
and Nye, 1977, chap. 7; Neustadt,
1970; Polanyi, 1944, chaps. 1-2). Conversely,
a sense of suspicion, such as that
characterizing relations between liberal
and nonliberal governments, can lead to
restrictions on the ranne of contacts between
societies, and thTs can increase the
prospect that a single conflict will deter-
American Political Science Review Vol. 80
mine an entire relationship.
No single constitutional, international,
or cosmopolitansourceis alone sufficient,
but together (and only together) they
plausibly connect the characteristics of
liberal polities and economies with sustained
liberal peace. Alliances founded on
mutual strategic interest among liberal
and nonliberal states have been broken;
economic ties between liberal and nonliberal
states have proven fragile; but the
political bonds of liberal rights and interests
have proven a remarkablyfirm foundation
for mutual nonaggression. A
separatepeace exists among liberal states.
In their relationswith nonliberal states,
however, liberal states have not escaped
from the insecurity caused by anarchy in
the world political system consideredas a
whole. Moreover, the very constitutional
restraint, international respect for individual
rights, and shared commercial
interests that establish grounds for peace
among liberal statesestablish grounds for
additional conflict in relations between
liberal and nonliberal societies.
Conclusion
Kant's liberal internationalism,
Machiavelli's liberal imperialism, and
Schumpeter's liberal pacifism rest on fundamentally
different views of the nature
of the human being, the state, and international
relation~.~Schumpeter's humans
are rationalized, individualized, and
democratized. They are also homogenized,
pursuing material interests "monistically."
Because their material interests
lie in peaceful trade, they and the democratic
state that these fellow citizens control
are pacifistic. Machiavelli's citizens
are splendidly diverse in their goals but
fundamentally unequal in them as well,
seeking to rule or fearing being dominated.
Extending the rule of the dominant
elite or avoiding the political collapse of
their state, each calls for imperial
expansion.
Kant's citizens, too, are diversein their
goals and individualizedand rationalized,
but most importantly, they are capable of
appreciating the moral equality of all individuals
and of treating other individuals
asendsrather than as means. TheKantian
state thus is governed publicly according
to law, as a republic. Kant's is the state
that solves the problem of governing individualized
equals, whether they are the
"rational devils" he says we often find
ourselves to be or the ethical agents we
can and should become. Republics tell us
that
in order to organize a group of rational beings
who togetherrequireuniversallaws for their survival,
but of whom each separate individual is
secretly inclined to exempt himself from them,
the constitution must be so designed so that,
althoughthe citizensare opposed to one another
in their private attitudes, these opposing views
may inhibit one another in such a way that the
public conductof the citizenswill be the same as
if they did not have such evil attitudes. (Kant,
PP, p. 113)
Unlike Machiavelli's republics, Kant's
republics are capable of achieving peace
among themselves because they exercise
democraticcaution and are capable of appreciating
the international rights of
foreign republics. These international
rights of republics derive from the
representation of foreign individuals,
who are our moral equals. Unlike Schumpeter's
capitalist democracies, Kant's
republics-including our own-remain in
a state of war with nonrepublics. Liberal
republics see themselves as threatened by
aggression from nonrepublics that are not
constrained by representation. Even
though wars often cost more than the
economic return they generate, liberal
republicsalso are prepared to protect and
promote-sometimes forcibly-democracy,
private property, and the rights of
individuals overseas against nonrepublics.
which. because thev do not authentically
represent the rights of individuals,
have no rights to noninterference. These
wars may liberate oppressed individuals
1986 Liberalism and World Politics
overseas; they also can generate enormous
suffering.
Preserving the legacy of the liberal
peace without succumbing to the legacy
of liberal imprudence is both a moral and
a strategic challenge. The bipolar stability
of tRe international system, and the near
certainty of mutual devastation resulting
from a nuclear war between the superpowers,
have created a "crystal ball
effect" that has helped to constrain the
tendency toward miscalculation present
at the outbreak of so many wars in the
past (Carnesale, Doty, Hoffrnann, Huntington,
Nye, and Sagan, 1983, p. 44;
Waltz, 1964). However, this "nuclear
peace" appears to be limited to the superpowers.
It has not curbed military interventions
in the Third World. Moreover, it
is subjectto a desperate technologicalrace
designed to overcome its constraints and
to crises that have pushed even the superpowers
to the brink of war. We must still
reckon with the war fevers and moods of
appeasement that have almost alternately
swept liberal democracies.
Yet restraining liberal imprudence,
whether aggressiveor passive, may not be
possible without threatening liberal
pacification. Improving the strategic
acumen of our foreign policy calls for introducing
steadier strategiccalculationsof
the national interest in the long run and
more flexible responses to changes in the
international political environment. Constraining
the indiscriminate meddling of
our foreign interventions calls for a
deeper appreciation of the "particularism
of history, culture, and membership"
(Walzer, 1983, p. 5), but both the improvement
in strategy and the constraint
on intervention seem, in turn, to require
an executive freed from the restraints of a
representative legislature in the management
of foreign policy and a political
culture indifferent to the universal rights
of individuals. These conditions, in their
turn, could break the chain of constitutional
guarantees, the respect for representative
government, and the web of
transnational contact that have sustained
the pacific union of liberal states.
Perpetual peace, Kant says, is the end
point of the hard journey his republics
will take. The promise of perpetual peace,
the violent lessons of war, and the experience
of a partial peace are proof of the
need for and the possibility of world
peace. They are also the grounds for
moral citizens and statesmen to assume
the duty of striving for peace.
American Political Science Review Vol. 80
Appendix I. Liberal Regimes and the Pacific Union, 1700-1982
Period
18th Century
Swiss Cantonsa
French Republic, 1790-1795
United States,=1776Total
= 3
1800-1850
Swiss Confederation
United States
France, 1830-1849
Belgium, 1830Great
Britain, 1832Netherlands,
1848Piedmont,
1848Denmark,
1849Total
= 8
1850-1900
Switzerland
United States
Belgium
Great Britain
Netherlands
Piedmont, -1861
Italy, 1861Denmark,
-1866
Sweden, 1864Greece,
1864Canada,
1867France,
1871Argentina,
1880Chile,
18%Total
= 13
1900-1945
Switzerland
United States
Great Britain
Sweden
Canada
Greece, -19ll; 1928-1936
Period
1900-1945 (cont.)
Italy, -1922
Belgium, -1940
Netherlands, -1940
Argentina, -1943
France, -1940
Chile, -1924, 1932Australia,
1901
Norway, 1905-1940
New Zealand, 1907Colombia,
1910-1949
Denmark, 1914-1940
Poland, 1917-1935
Latvia, 1922-1934
Germany, 1918-1932
Austria, 1918-1934
Estonia, 1919-1934
Finland, 1919Uruguay,
1919Costa
Rica, 1919Czechoslovakia,
1920-1939
Ireland, 1920Mexico,
1928Lebanon,
1944Total
= 29
19453
Switzerland
United States
Great Britain
Sweden
Canada
Australia
New Zealand
Finland
Ireland
Mexico
Uruguay, -1973
Chile, -1973
Lebanon, -1975
Period
1945- (cont.)
Costa Rica, -1948; 1953Iceland,
1944France,
1945Denmark,
1945
Norway, 1945
Austria, 1945Brazil,
1945-1954; 1955-1964
Belgium, 1946Luxemburg,
1946Netherlands,
1946Italy,
1946Philippines,
1946-1972
India, 1947-1975, 1977Sri
Lanka, 1948-1961; 1963-1971;
1978Ecuador,
1948-1963; 1979Israel,
1949West
Germany, 1949Greece,
1950-1967; 1975Peru,
1950-1962; 1963-1968; 1980El
Salvador, 1950-1961
Turkey, 1950-1960; 1966-1971
Japan, 1951Bolivia,
1956-1969; 1982Colombia,
1958Venezuela,
1959Nigeria,
1961-1964; 1979-1984
Jamaica, 1962Trinidad
and Tobago, 1962Senegal,
1963Malaysia,
1963Botswana,
1966Singapore,
1965Portugal,
1976Spain,
1978Dominican
Republic, 1978Honduras,
1981Papua
New Guinea, 1982Total
= 50
Note: I have drawn up this approximate list of "Liberal Regimes" according to the four institutions Kant
described as essential: market and private property economies; polities that are externally sovereign; citizens
who possess juridical rights; and "republican" (whether republican or parliamentary monarchy), representativegovernment.
This latter includes the requirementthat the legislativebranchhave an effectiverole in public
policy and be formally and competitively(eitherinter- or intra-party) elected. Furthermore, I have taken into
account whether male suffrage is wide (i.e., 30%) or, as Kant (MM, p. 139) would have had it, open by
"achievement" to inhabitants of the national or metropolitan territory (e.g., to poll-tax payers or householders).
This list of liberal regimes is thus more inclusive than a list of democratic regimes, or polyarchies
(Powell, 1982, p. 5). Other conditions taken into account here are that female suffrage is granted within a
generation of its being demanded by an extensive female suffrage movement and that representativegovernment
is internally sovereign (e.g., including, and especially over military and foreignaffairs)as well as stable
(in existencefor at least three years). Sourcesfor these data are Banksand Overstreet (1983),Gastil(1985). The
Europa Yearbook, 1985 (1985), Langer (1968), U.K. Foreign and Commonwealth Office (19801, and U.S.
1986 Liberalism and World Politics
Department of State (1981).Finally, theselistsexcludeancientand medieval "republics," sincenone appears to
fit Kant's commitment to liberal individualism (Holmes, 1979).
aThereare domesticvariations within theseliberalregimes: Switzerlandwas liberal only incertaincantons; the
United States was liberal only north of the Mason-Dixon line until 1865,when it became liberal throughout.
bSelected list, excludes liberal regimes with populations less than one million. These include all states
categorized as "free"by Gastil and those ''partly free" (four-fifthsor more free)states with a morepronounced
capitalist orientation.
Appendix 2. InternationalWars Listed Chronologically
British-Maharattan (1817-1818) Pacific (1879-1883)
Greek (1821-1828) British-Zulu (1879)
Franco-Spanish (1823) Franco-Indochinese (1882-1884)
First Anglo-Burmese (1823-1826) Mahdist (1882-1885)
Javanese (1825-1830) Sino-French (1884-1885)
Russo-Persian (1826-1828) Central American (1885)
Russo-Turkish (1828-1829) Serbo-Bulgarian (1885)
First Polish (1831) Sino-Japanese (1894-1895)
First Syrian (1831-1832) Franco-Madagascan (1894-1895)
Texas (1835-1836) Cuban (1895-1898)
First British-Afghan (1838-1842) Italo-Ethipian (1895-1896)
SecondSyrian (1839-1940) First Philippine (1896-1898)
Franco-Algerian (1839-1847) Greco-Turkish (1897)
Peruvian-Bolivian (1841) Spanish-American (1898)
First British-Sikh (1845-1846) Second Phlippine (1899-1902)
Mexican-American (1846-1848) Boer (1899-1902)
Austro-Sardinian (1848-1849) Boxer Rebellion (1900)
First Schleswig-Holstein(1848-1849) Ilinden (1903)
Hungarian (1848-1849) Russo-Japanese(1904-1905)
Second British-Sikh (1848-1849) Central American (1906)
Roman Republic (1849) Central American (1907)
La Plata (1851-1852) Spanish-Moroccan (1909-1910)
First Turco-Montenegran(1852-1853) Italo-Turkish (1911-1912)
Crimean (1853-1856) First Balkan (1912-1913)
Anglo-Persian (1856-1857) Second Balkan (1913)
Sepoy (1857-1859) World War I (1914-1918)
Second Turco-Montenegran (1858-1859) Russian Nationalities (1917-1921)
Italian Unification (1859) Russo-Polish (1919-1920)
Spanish-Moroccan(1859-1860) Hungarian-Allies (1919)
Italo-Roman (1860) Greco-Turkish (1919-1922)
Italo-Sicilian (1860-1861) Riffian (1921-1926)
Franco-Mexican (1862-1867) Druze (1925-1927)
Ecuadorian-Colombian(1863) Sino-Soviet (1929)
Second Polish (1863-1864) Manchurian (1931-1933)
Spanish-SantoDominican (1863-1865) Chaco (1932-1935)
Second Schleswin-Holstein(1864) Italo-Ethiopian(1935-1936)
Lopez (1864-1875) ~ino-~apaiese(1937-1941)
'
Spanish-Chilean (1865-1866) Russo-Hungarian (1956) 

Seven Weeks (1866) Sinai (1956) 

Ten Years (1868-1878) Tibetan (1956-1959) 

Franco-Prussian (1870-1871) Sino-Indian (1962) 

Dutch-Achinese (1873-1878) Vietnamese (1965-1975) 

Balkan (1875-1877) Second Kashmir (1965) 

Russo-Turkish (1877-1878) Six Day (1967) 

Bosnian (1878) Israeli-Egyptian (1969-1970) 

Second British-Afghan (1878-1880) Football (1969) 

---
American Political Science Review Vol. 80
Changkufeng (1938) Bangladesh (197l) 

Nomohan (1939) Philippine-MNLF (1972-) 

World War I1 (1939-1945) Yom Kippur (1973) 

Russo-Finnish (1939-1940) Turco-Cypriot (1974) 

Franco-Thai (1940-1941) Ethiopian-Eritrean (1974-) 

Indonesian (1945-1946) Vietnamese-Cambodian (1975-) 

Indochinese (1945-1954) Timor (1975-) 

Madagascan (1947-1948) Saharan (1975-) 

First Kashmir (1947-1949) Ogaden (1976-) 

Palestine (1948-1949) Ugandan-Tanzanian (1978-1979) 

Hyderabad (1948) Sino-Vietnamese(1979) 

Korean (1950-1953) Russo-Afghan (1979-) 

Algerian (1954-1962) Iran-Iraqi (1980-) 

Note: This table is taken from Melvin Small andJ. David Singer(1982,pp. 79-80). Thisis a partial list of international
wars fought between 1816and 1980. In Appendices A and B, Smalland Singer identifya total of 575
wars during this period, but approximately 159 of them appear to be largely domestic, or civil wars.
This list excludes covert interventions, some of which have been directed by liberal regimes against other
liberalregimes-for example, the United States' effort to destabilize the Chileanelection andAllende's government.
Nonetheless, it is significant that such interventions are not pursued publicly as acknowledged policy.
The covert destabilization campaign against Chile is recounted by the Senate Select Committee to Study
Governmental Operations with Respect to IntelligenceActivities (1975, Covert Action in Chile, 1963-73).
Following the argument of this article, this list also excludes civilwars. Civil wars differ from international
wars, not in the ferocity of combat, but in the issues that engender them. Two nations that could abide one
another as independentneighborsseparated by a border might well be the fiercest of enemiesif forced to live
together in one state, jointly decidinghow to raise and spend taxes, choose leaders, and legislatefundamental
questionsof value. Notwithstanding these differences, no civil wars that I recall upset the argument of liberal
pacification.
Notes
I would like to thank Marshall Cohen, Amy Gutmann,
Ferdinand Hermens, Bonnie Honig, Paschalis
Kitromilides, Klaus Knorr, Diana Meyers, Kenneth
Oye, Jerome Schneewind, and Richard Ullman for
their helpful suggestions. One version of this paper
was presented at the American Section of the International
Society for Social and Legal Philosophy,
Notre Dame, Indiana, November2-4,1984, and will
appear in Realism and Morality, edited by Kenneth
Kipnis and Diana Meyers. Another versionwas presented
on March 19, 1986, to the Avoiding Nuclear
War Project, Center for Science and International
Affairs, The John F. Kennedy School of Government,
Harvard University. This essay draws on
research assisted by a MacArthur Fellowship in
International Securityawarded by the SocialScience
Research Council.
1. He notes that testing this proposition is likely
to be very difficult, requiring "detailed historical
analysis." However, the bourgeois attitude toward
the military, the spirit and manner by which bourgeois
societies wage war, and the readiness with
which they submit to military rule during a prolonged
war are "conclusive in themselves" (Schumpeter,
1950, p. 129).
2. Clarence Streit (1938, pp. 88, 90-92) seems to
have been the first to point out (in contemporary
foreign relations) the empirical tendency of democracies
to maintain peace among themselves, and he
made this the foundation of his proposal for a (nonKantian)federal
union of the 15leadingdemocracies
of the 1930s. In a very interesting book, Ferdinand
Hermens (1944)explored someof the policy implications
of Streit's analysis. D. V. Babst (1972, pp.
55-58) performed a quantitative study of this
phenomenon of "democratic peace," and R. J.
Rummel (1983) did a similar study of "libertarianism"
(in the sense of laissez faire) focusing on the
postwar period that drew on an unpublished study
(ProjectNo. 48) noted in Appendix 1of his Understanding
Conflict and War (1979, p. 386). I use the
term liberal in a wider, Kantian sense in my discussion
of this issue (Doyle, 1983a). In that essay, I
survey the period from 1790to the present and find
no war among liberal states.
3. Babst (1972)did make a preliminary test of the
significanceof the distribution of alliancepartners in
World War I. He found that the possibility that the
actual distribution of alliance partners could have
occurred by chance was less than 1% (Babst, 1972,
p. 56). However, this assumes that there was an
equal possibility that any two nations could have
gone to war with each other, and this is a strong
assumption. Rummel(1983)has a further discussion
1986 Liberalism and World Politics
of the issue of statistical significanceas it applies to
his libertarian thesis.
4. There are seriousstudiesshowing that Marxist
regimes have higher military spending per capita
than non-Marxist regimes (Payne, n.d.), but this
should not be interpreted as a sign of the inherent
aggressiveness of authoritarian or totalitarian
governments or of the inherent and global
ness of liberal regimes. Marxist regimes, in particular,
represent a minority in the current international
system; they are strategicallyencircled, and
due to their lack of domesticlegitimacy, they might
be said to "suffer" the twin burden of needing
defensesagainst both external and internal enemies.
Andreski (1980), moreover, argues that (purely)
military dictatorships, due to their domesticfragility,
have little incentiveto engage in foreignmilitary
adventures. Accordingto Walter Clemens(1982, pp.
117-18), the United States intervened in the Third
World more than twice as often during the period
1946-1976 as the Soviet Union did in 1946-79.
Relatedly, Posen and VanEvera (1980, p. 105; 1983,
pp. 86-89) found that the United States devoted one
quarter and the Soviet Union one tenth of their
defense budgets to forces designed for Third World
inteiventions (where respondingto perceived threats
would presumablyhave a less than purely defensive
character).
5. All citations from Kant are from Kant's
Political Writings (Kant, 1970), the H. B. Nisbet
translation edited by Hans Reiss. The works discussedand
the abbreviationsby which theyare identified
in the text are as follows:
PP Perpetual Peace (1795) 

UH The Idea for a Universal History with a 

Cosmopolitan Purpose (1784)
CF The Contest of Faculties (1798)
MM The Metaphysics of Morals (1797)
6. I think Kant meant that the peace would be
establishedamong liberalregimes andwouldexpand
by ordinary political and legal means as new liberal
regimesappeared. By a process of gradual extension
the peace would become global and then perpetual;
the occasion for wars with nonliberalswould &sap
pear as nonliberal regimes disappeared.
7. Kant's foedus pacificum is thus neither a pactum
pacis (a single peace treaty) nor a civitas gentium
(a world state). He appears to have anticipated
something like a less formally institutionalized
League of Nations or United Nations. One could
argue that in practice, these two institutions worked
for liberal states and only for liberal states, but no
specifically liberal "pacific union" was institutionalized.
Instead, liberal states have behaved for
the past 180years as if such a Kantian pacific union
and treaty of perpetual peace had been signed.
8. In the Metaphysics of Morals (theRechtslehre)
Kant seems to write as if perpetual peace is only an
epistemological device and, while an ethicalduty, is
empirically merely a "pious hope" (MM, pp.
164-75)-though even here he finds that the pacific
union is not "impracticable" (MM, p. ln).In the
Universal History (UH),Kant writes as if the brute
force of physical nature drives men toward inevitable
peace. Yovel(1980, pp. 168ff.) argues that
from a post-critical (post-Critique of Judgment)
perspective, Perpetual Peace reconciles the two
views of history. "Nature" is human-created nature
(culture or civilization). Perpetual peace is the "a
priori of the a posterionv'-a criticalperspectivethat
then enables us to discern causal, probabilistic patterns
in history. Law and the "political technology"
of republican constitutionalism are separate from
ethicaldevelopment, but both interdependentlylead
toperpetual peace-the first through force, fear, and
self-interest; the second through progressive
enlightenment-and both together lead to perpetual
peace through the widening of the circumstancesin
which engaging in right conduct poses smaller and
smaller burdens.
9. For a comparative discussion of the political
foundations of Kant's ideas, see Shklar (1984, pp.
232-38).
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You have printed the following article:
Liberalism and World Politics
Michael W. Doyle
The American Political Science Review, Vol. 80, No. 4. (Dec., 1986), pp. 1151-1169.
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Mirror, Mirror on the Wall... Are the Freer Countries More Pacific?
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The Journal of Conflict Resolution, Vol. 28, No. 4. (Dec., 1984), pp. 617-648.
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Kant, Liberal Legacies, and Foreign Affairs, Part 2
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